Atomistic Simulation of Slow Grain Boundary Motion

Existing atomistic simulation techniques to study grain boundary motion are usually limited to either high velocities or temperatures and are difficult to compare to realistic experimental conditions. Here we introduce an adapted simulation method that can access boundary velocities in the experimental range and extract mobilities in the zero driving force limit at temperatures as low as similar to 0.2T(m) (T-m is the melting point). The method reveals three mechanistic regimes of boundary mobility at zero net velocity depending on the system temperature.